With the new Recruit a Friend program unveiled this week, it's the perfect time to think about leveling! This guide covers ways to improve your leveling experience and useful beginner info for new Recruit-a-Friend players! Patch 5.4 made it pretty easy to get epics once you're 90, so let's talk about what you need to do to get there!

We've covered the basics like how to gain experience, transportation, and talents, as well as ways to speed up leveling like experience buffs and Recruit-a-Friend. We also look at some gear details, like heirlooms that increase experience gained, scaling enchants, and gems that can be used at different levels.

In light of the new RAF program being launched, it makes sense Blizzard announced yesterday that Cataclysm is now included in the Battle Chest for only $19.99--this change makes it easier and cheaper for new players to catch up to their friends. For seasoned players, there's also a 33% off sale on Winged Guardian this week!

Talk Azeroth

We've got another episode of Talk Azeroth up with Olivia! This time, Olivia gets into the acronyms with a re-recorded (after the last one failed) version of Talk Azeroth 16. She's talking about the controversial match-ending debuff, The Crowd Chose You, and the upcoming changes to it, as well as touching on the Diminishing Returns system, answering your questions a

The Scroll of Resurrection program received some updates today for Mists of Pandaria, in light of players leveling Monks. Low-level Pandaren cannot receive Scroll of Resurrection rewards, all Monks will be ineligible for rewards, and talents will no longer be preselected.

However, Zarhym clarified that Monks will still be able to take full advantages of RAF bonuses as well as remain eligible for realm firsts. In addition there's no news about the mount rewards being removed anytime soon: Spectral Gryphon and Spectral Wind Rider.

Pet lovers should also rejoice, as Fox Kit will be purchasable for 0 Tol Barad Commendation on live servers soon. Blizzard Game Designer Jonathan LeCraft tweeted this image yesterday, along with the message "Just added the fox kit to some vendors... #wow." The grind was very punishing before, so this change is great news--plus, it will breathe some life back into Tol Barad.

There's also been an unusually large amount of class feedback on the beta forums. Of particular note: has been significantly changed: "The net result will be that

There's a new mount players can get this week, via Recruit-a-Friend: Heart of the Nightwing. This mount replaces the X-53 Touring Rocket as the reward you get when the recruited player pays for the second full month of game time. It transforms you into a flying panther that can carry the recruit on your back! Check out the 3D model below:

There are also two 10-player heroic encounters open for testing on beta today. Check out our past coverage of these bosses featuring the Encounter Journal and screenshots!

In today's news round up, there's also more class balance analysis posts and the ongoing debate on challenging content in Cataclysm continues. And as a reminder, Power of the Aspects is now 30% in Dragon Soul this week.

While we don’t have an official launch date to reveal for the new Recruit-A-Friend mount, we wanted to give you an early heads up that the changeover will be happening “soon” (TM). You have a few weeks to claim the X-53 Touring Rocket before it goes away.